The Book Lover's Almanac

The chance of a lifetime!

A new course next year will allow you to read whatever you like.  Find a genre that you want to spend the whole nine weeks exploring.  Become a master and share your knowledge with the class.

I remember four months before the end of my junior year at Brown talking with my parents about what I was going to spend the summer doing.  The previous year I took a trip across the country, so even though I got to go on hikes that made me scream affirmations to life and spirit, kayak along rivers only seen by a few,  my mom was hoping that I would do something a little more serious this year.  

That meant I was working at the hospital, doing work on dreaming and any combination of emotional disorders.  It was interesting work and thinking about dreams always makes me get back to all the quintessential questions for how the universe and all other things work.  

I mean what is crazier than being able to remember things that you were unconscious for when they happened.

The hospital was all lined up until my ACL suffered a tear in an unfortunate accident.  I then had four weeks on the couch waiting for me after the surgery that would take place the day after I took my last exam.  

So there I was, sitting on the couch finally being able to handle the pain with absolutely nothing to do.  I liked to read.  I mean my mom had put all the best books in my hands from when I was young.  I remember tackling a book on the Wright brothers, sitting inverted with my legs on the wall and my back on the floor of the middle landing of the stairwell, Susan's Cooper's amazing series with Will Stanton and the Drew children, and had been to Narnia if not enough times, more than a few.  But, I wasn't yet a reader.  

This was the summer that I would become a reader.  

I remember weaving through the stacks with my crutches looking up leads I had from friends.  Like I said, I was interested in dreaming at the time, but the work at the hospital kind of took all the mystical stuff out of the dreams, so I was searching for stuff by Carlos Castaneda, Thomas Mann, and some other folks with unique perspectives on dreams.  Morgenstern's The Princess Bride and books on fencing were another group of books that I sought out.  It was the first time I was reading what I wanted.  

I guess to become a reader all you need is some time and good books.  I will have plenty of good books available if you take the time to explore books next year in Read, Read, and Read Some More.